Let's speak Czech!

This post covers pretty much this past week in it's entirety because I finally have some free time to sit down and write this when it's not 12:30 am and I'm ridiculously tired, so it's going to be kind of lengthy, just warning you now.

So on Monday we started taking our required 2 week, 3 credit intensive Czech language class, and it's actually been pretty insane. We're in class every day from 9 - 1:15 with 2 15 minute breaks, and our teacher is really cool and everything, it's just that that's a lot of Czech in such a short amount of time. The language is also a pretty difficult one to master... the grammar part comes pretty easily to me because of the 7 years of Spanish I took in grade school, but the pronunciation and phonetics are so entirely different because Czech is a Slavic language, so their word formation is entirely different. We spend most of our class time on pronunciation and phonetical spelling, so it gets really tedious and frustrating super easily, but it'll all work out in the end. I'm starting to get the hang of it, so hopefully things will go quicker from here. My teacher said I had really good pronunciation, so obviously I must be doing something right, even if I feel like I'm not. I'm voluntarily taking Czech Language and Culture I throughout the whole semester because I really do want to try to learn the language enough so that I can at least have a conversation with someone at the grocery store or in a restaurant. I'm working on it.

So we've had all these orientations and walks around Prague in the afternoon after class, which has been really cool. We've had walks of Vysehrad (the district of Prague that our school is located in) and New Town (where a major portion of Charles University is located) as well as a walk through the Old Town, which is the famous historical center of Prague with the astronomical clock and all the fun touristy areas. The days are exhausting though, getting up at 7 for class, leaving my 8:15 to get to school by 9, then sitting in class until 1:15, grabbing lunch somewhere real quick (like the cafeteria in the basement where the check out guy knows us now and is super cool) to be back by 2:30 for orientation and such, but I really couldn't have asked for anything different. I'm having such a fantastic time and I've made so many new friends that I couldn't have asked for anything better. Prague is everything I imagined and more.

I've done a bunch of exploring on my own, too, though, which has probably been the best part. Early this week, me and a couple friends walked up the street that our school is on and found this huge castle complex that the district is named after on the top of the hill (hrad = castle, so Vysehrad is the name of the castle and the district) and walked on top of the fortress wall where we found the most beautiful view of Prague. You can basically look down at the city and see across the river, it was absolutely breathtaking. We've also explored the area around apartment a bunch, as well as Old Town and the historic center. Another place we ventured to was the outskirts of town with the student helper for the USAC program, Geiger to this small little pub where old people go every other Monday to play traditional Czech folk music and sing and dance, and it was such a fantastic time. Every one made friends with the locals and it was such a great time, I'll post a video on Facebook soon. We also went to this huge outdoor market (we found it on the second try... try one we went the wrong and got lost but found some really cool thrift stores, so it made up for it!) where everything was super cheap and they had so many things to choose from. We're definitely going back.

On a completely different note, I may actually be staying for a couple extra weeks at the end of the program to go backpacking with Ian across Europe before I come home. We're trying to work it out so that he can come meet me in Prague when I have to move out of the program housing here for the semester and then we'll just travel around Europe for a couple weeks and then head back home. I just think it would be so cool to do that and it's the perfect opportunity since I'll already be here and Ian can just come out and meet me and we'll do Europe the way we want to. :)

Well it's nap time now because I can't go to bed early tonight... we're going out to this huge 5 story music/dance club in the center of town that's apparently so much fun, so I'm excited! More on that later!